Need some Wisdom from the more Experienced

#21

I’m jumping into the party late… but another consideration is intense exercise. If you were to deplete your glycogen from the muscles and liver, the body would preferentially try to fill those glycogen stores, which would change your tolerance for carbs, well maybe tolerance is the wrong word… maybe it would be better to say that on heavy training days, you would be able to consume more carbs, because even if it briefly brings you out of ketosis, it would still not be stored as fat.

(Ron) #22

I was under the impression that once you are adapted and using ketone bodies as fuel that when you introduce glucose (carbs) into your diet, your body will metabolize that as the first choice fuel without storing any and then revert right back to burning fat. I suppose if you consumed a higher volume of carbs than your TDE that some might get stored. Maybe the more experienced could comment on this.

(Alec) #23

Ron
Are you in weight loss mode? Or are you maintaining? I am no expert (yet) on meal/carb BG response, so I can’t answer your question directly.

My opinion is that the longer we do keto, the more we heal, the better the insulin response becomes, the better the cells respond to small bursts of insulin (ie less IR).

It’s an interesting question you ask though. In principle what we want is lower insulin. So the real question for me is how long does it take for your BG to return to normal after a carby meal. That is what I would be testing, rather than the height of the spike.

(Ron) #24

Still weight loss (got about 30lbs to go).

(Alec) #25

Ron
That was my understanding too. I think the preferred order of play is glucose, ketones, fat. Happy to be corrected.

#26

Let me preface, I am not a doctor or scientists… but in my reading, the liver glycogen is first to be filled when carbs are ingested. My understanding is that if their are not enough carbs to replenish glycogen then the body relies on gluconeogenesis to replenish.

Here is an article - https://www.ruled.me/mythbusting-training-on-keto-diet/

I wonder about these things a lot, because I do intense weight lifting and the muscles use the glycogen for energy to contract during intense training. Endurance on the other hand can rely more on fat because of the aerobic environment.

Either way, I think it is best to keep carbs as low as possible… in the long run it doesn’t really buy you any real benefit to consume more of them. This is a marathon and not a sprint, so if you find yourself in a situation that you don’t have a way out of, do what you must, but in general, plan ahead so you don’t see many of those situations.

(Ron) #27

My intent is to understand my body and it’s reactions to specific things and tolerances (just as you “wonder about these things a lot”). This allows me more (or less) flexibility in my diet as guidelines. I can see in the long haul that this could be a benefit in avoiding the “slave to your food” mentality that potentially could infiltrate my journey. I now know that I can have a baked potato with sour cream with my steak and only consume about 35g carbs, well within my limit to cause an insulin spike (or store glycogen).:slightly_smiling_face:

#28

Ok… last comment… then I will just troll…

I would stay away from high glycemic index carbs like baked potatoes because they will definitely spike your insulin regardless of the amount of carbs consumed.

Around here, everyone appreciates people who are wanting to do n=1 in order to understand their own bodies better. I wish you the best in your endeavors…

(Todd Gamel) #29

So far it sounds like you are doing exactly what you need to do Ron. The hardest thing for most people to grasp when attempting to lose weight or go ketogenic is that they like to know specifically how many carbs to eat so that they have a target goal. The problem is that we are all different and depending on your carbohydrate tolerance or resistance, you may indeed be able to eat 50 – 100 grams of carbohydrates and maintain normal blood sugars. Whereas I may eat the same number of carbohydrate as you and have blood sugars that are quite a bit higher.

From my personal experience, I have noticed that today I can consume more carbohydrates than I could 22 months ago and my blood sugars do not increase quite as much. In theory, that would mean that I am becoming less insulin resistant, or I am better able to process carbohydrates so that they have a lesser impact on my blood sugars. You may of course be experiencing this same affect.

Even though I can eat more carbohydrates, I still try and keep my total intake for the day less than 20 net carbs. I never want to have to go back to taking insulin again, and if restricting my carbohydrate intake for the rest of life means doing so, then I am good with that.

As for increasing your carb intake and finding the amount that you can eat without affecting your blood sugars, back in the day, Dr. Atkins used to talk about two critical carbohydrate levels when restricting carbohydrate intake. He classified these two terms as Critical Carbohydrate Level For Losing (CCLL), and Critical Carbohydrate Level For Maintenance (CCLM).

Critical Carbohydrate Level For Losing (CCLL) – Is the maximum number of net carbohydrates that you can eat each day and still lose weight. The CCLL is not monitoring whether you are in a state of ketosis, rather it is the level of carbohydrates you can eat and lose weight.

Critical Carbohydrate Level For Maintenance (CCLM) – This is the maximum number of net carbohydrates you can eat on a daily basis and not gain any weight.

So depending on your goals, one level will keep you losing weight, one will keep you in maintenance. I think you could use this same concept to determine the number of carbs that keeps you under a specific blood sugar level. So if you can eat 100 grams of net carbs and keep your blood sugar under 90 that’s great. For me and my deranged metabolism that number is 20 – 25 grams of net carbs.